Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Lumumba was the first democratically elected leader of the Congo (WP). He was only in office a few months before the US pushed the Belgians to back a coup, which not only removed him from power but hunted him down and executed him. Following Congo’s independence from Belgium’s long and harsh colonial rule (WP), plotting by the US, Belgium, and the UN against the newly independent state and its leader plunged Congo into chaos. Belgium refused to fully hand power over. The US considered Lumumba an "African Fidel" Fidel|(WP) and ordered him removed. Belgian officers, presumably exhorted from higher up, held their former posts, against the terms of Independence. Congolese rallying to oust them were attacked by Belgian troops. Belgium then backed a secession of mineral-rich Katanga Province. Lumumba called on the United Nations (WP), but it refused to intervene on behalf of the fledgling country against its former colonial overbears. The US and Belgium directed Lumumba’s chief of staff from the army Mobutu Sese Seko (WP) (Joseph-Désiré Mobutu) to organize a coup in September 1960. Again and again, the US directly, or using Belgium, destroyed Lumumba’s efforts to wrestle the country away from Western colonial powers & create a proud, free nation governed by the principles of pan-Africanism (WP), social (WP) and economic justice (WP), fundamental human rights (WP) and neutral relations with the West & the USSR (WP). But fearing Lumumba could return to power at anytime, US president Dwight D. Eisenhower (WP) authorized his assassination. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/02/magazine/the-cia-and-lumumba.html CIA (WP) director Allen Dulles (WP) told Eisenhower on Sept. 21, 1960 that the "danger of Soviet influence" was still present in the Congo and that Lumumba "remained a grave danger as long as he was not disposed of." https://t.co/YR4DJYYI8f The CIA’s top scientist even arrived in Congo with a poison which would kill Lumumba without being attributable to the US. The poison was to be added to Lumumba’s food or toothpaste to give him a disease native to Congo. CIA director Dulles sent a message to C.I.A. station chief in Congo, Lawrence Devlin, that an assassination of Lumumba was an “urgent and prime objective” and he gave him the authority to replace him with a “pro-Western group” with a budget of $100,000. By mid-October, headquarters was impatient. Bronson Tweedy, head of the African division of the C.I.A.'s clandestine services, suggested a "commando type group" could abduct Lumumba from the residence where he was under the protection of U.N. troops. C.I.A. Station Chief Devlin recommended that a "high-powered foreign-make rifle with telescopic scope and silencer" be sent to him by diplomatic pouch. "Hunting good here," he wrote cryptically, "when lights right." Lumumba sensed his jeopardy and attempted to flee to Stanleyville, 1,000 miles to the east on Nov 27, 1960, but was arrested on the way by Colonel Mobutu's soldiers and was imprisoned in Thysville, 90 miles from the capital of Leopoldville. Lumumba was executed by Katangan provincial officials and Belgian mercenaries on the night of Jan. 17, 1961 by firing squad. The CIA claims to have had no hand in his death; however files demonstrate the CIA had spent months assisting Lumumba’s enemies in their plots against him. Recall that the Uranium for the atomic bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima (WP) on August 6, 1945 was made from Congolese uranium. Following Lumumba’s murder, protests erupted across the world, with huge protests in Yugoslavia, Egypt, Paris. There were even clashes at the UN."Lumumba- Violent Reaction" - AP archive of mostly non-violent protests It can be expected that the US and its western allies will do everything possible to prevent Africans or South Americans or anyone, really, from controlling anything, especially their strategic raw materials. The usual explanation invokes fear of the communist enemy, but General Smedley Darlington Butler's (WP) experience, and the 21st C use of the terrorist Boogeyman disproves that. Empires have always done as they wished no matter the consequences to those weaker. Only the pacifist aftermath of the terrible WWI changed that at all, but by then it was too late; that same war enriched the US out of all proportion and WWII made the disparity worse. Links https://t.co/7pAYoRzBk3 https://twitter.com/Americas_Crimes/status/1217637285748858880?s=19 Category:1925 births Category:1961 deaths Category:People from Sankuru Category:Tetela people Category:Prime Ministers of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Category:Lumumba Government members Category:African and Black nationalists Category:Anti-imperialism Category:Assassinated Democratic Republic of the Congo politicians Category:Deaths by firearm in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Category:Democratic Republic of the Congo torture victims Category:Executed Democratic Republic of the Congo people Category:Executed prime ministers Category:Leaders ousted by a coup Category:Democratic Republic of the Congo pan-Africanists Category:Mouvement National Congolais politicians Category:People murdered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Category:People of the Congo Crisis Category:African pan-Africanists Category:African revolutionaries Category:Évolués Category:Independence activists Category:1961 murders in Africa Category:Heads of regimes who were later imprisoned Category:Resistance to colonialism Category:Resistance movements Category:Nonviolent resistance movements Category:Resistance